“Don’t underestimate the people’s will to achieve a nuclear-free homeland and the abandonment of construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant,” Lee said. “If [the government] continues to use a politically calculated bird cage referendum to respond to demands for a nuclear phase out, then I believe the referendum result will have a big impact on the government.”

A main feature of the event was the unfurling of a large anti-nuclear flag reading “NO NUKES, No more Fukushima” by more than a dozen people surrounded by hundreds more holding smaller flags.

Tsai Chung-yueh (蔡中岳) of Citizen of the Earth, Taiwan, said that the large number of participants at the weekend’s events showed the people’s will to stop nuclear power. Tsai said the events were only the first of many.

Before the crowd left they were invited to form the Chinese character for “person” (人), to express a slogan used during the march — “I am a human being, I am against nuclear power” — and to echo a flash-mob protest initiated by theater director Ko I-chen (柯一正) at the same location last year.